Government to test capping stack, two years after Gulf oil spill

View full size(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)FILE - Workers at the Wild Well Control company load a chamber that will be used to help contain oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform onto a ship in Port Fourchon, La., Wednesday, May 5, 2010.

MOBILE, Alabama -- The White House announced Thursday that the government would finally require the oil industry to test the capping stack officials hope to use to stop the next well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

As recently as late April, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said there was no need to test the capping stack because it was based on technology already in use in the Gulf.

“If the situation arises where containment companies propose equipment that BSEE considers to be new technology, said equipment will be fully tested prior to our acceptance as a subsea containment solution,“ read an April statement from the agency.

Officials did not respond when asked Thursday why the agency decided to change course.

“The federal government has been approving high-risk deepwater wells in the belief that these new capping systems work as advertised, so I’m glad to see that an actual field test of this equipment will finally be done,” said John Amos, president of SkyTruth, an organization that monitors environmental problems via satellite imagery.

Amos, a former oil industry geologist has testified before Congress about the industry’s inability to respond to spills in deepwater.

He noted that even if the capping device works as advertised, it would take weeks to deploy, meaning an uncontrolled spill like the BP disaster would release millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.

“I hope the test will be open to skilled outside observers and all the results will be made available to the public without delay,” Amos said. “I also expect this test will be conducted in the same conditions where new wells are being drilled right now in the Gulf: in water more than 5,000’ deep and 100 miles offshore.”

Federal officials provided no details about the location the test will be conducted.

“The demonstration will involve the field deployment and testing of a capping stack as part of a larger scenario that will also test an operator’s ability to obtain and schedule the deployment of the supporting systems necessary for successful containment – including debris removal equipment and oil collection devices, such as top hats,” read a news release. “The capping stack will be lowered to the seabed by wire, a technique that offers the potential to be significantly faster than the deployment via pipe that occurred during the Deepwater Horizon response.”

The release states that the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement will review the test.